Married Women’s Financial Support to Their Parents

Abstract

To investigate the factors of intergenerational financial support from married women who do not live together with parents to their parents, this study analyzed factors affecting whether there is married women’s financial support and the amount of support using the data of the 7th year(2004) of Korea Labor and Income Panel Study. The results of empirical analysis in this study are as follows. Firstly, married women’s financial support to their parents occurred less than 40% and the average annual amount of the married women’s support to their parents was 704,000 won. This is quite low compared to the results of previous researches that analyzed including sons and their parents. Secondly, the possibility of financial support was higher when married woman visited to their parents frequently and married woman’s husband had a high academic qualification and monthly income. The amount of support was affected by married women’s academic qualification(+), earned income(+), number of children younger than six years old(+), frequency of visit to parents(+) and husband’s earned income(+). That is, the possibility of financial support was determined by husband’s characteristics rather than woman’s ones. However, the amount of financial support was affected by woman’s characteristics and husband’s earned income. Thirdly, husbands’ earned income has a positive(+) effect on the possibility of married women’s financial support to their parents and the amount of support means that married women, even if unemployed, provide financial support to their parents if their husband’s earned income is sufficient. From this aspect, we can understand that women’s employment and income are not essential factors for their financial support to their parents.